The use of monitoring means, by means of which one or more parameters of the patient are monitored, is common in the modern care for and treatment of patients, the current technical possibilities permitting the determination of a plurality of measured values over time and the display thereof by means of a display device. The physician caring for the patient being monitored or the caregiver of the patient being monitored is therefore faced with the often rather complex task of recognizing the state of monitoring of this patient at a current given point in time sufficiently, rapidly and reliably on the basis of the measured values being displayed to the physician and of identifying the actually relevant parameter values.